Cold
by Veterization
Summary: Harry/Cedric oneshot. As the tournament begins, Harry thinks he may have a thing for Cedric Diggory.


_Disclaimer:_ I do not own Harry Potter.

_Cedric Diggory_.

It's a name that, undoubtedly, has a ring to it.

Harry is sprawled onto a patch of grass, head pounding from the fall as if someone was working construction from the depths of his mind, when he first touches the boy.

He props himself up on his elbows, only to be face-to-face with an outstretched hand and a grinning face that could easily be plastered onto posters for dental advertisements. He blinks, shakes his head clear of the steady throb and residual specks of dirt from his fall, and takes the hand that came to his aid seconds after his less than graceful plummet to earth.

Cedric looks a bit amused, but more so sincere than anything else, but to the biggest disturbance of Harry, not at all bruised or battered by the fall. Harry suspects that there was much less falling on Cedric's part.

"Thanks," Harry mutters, and is promptly heaved up back to the ground.

Cedric smiles at him, one of those thousand-watt smiles that, would he know Cedric's personality better to make such an assumption confidently, Harry would say has a familiar hint of mischief and hard to find friendliness hidden inside.

Cedric lets go of his hand and hikes up the hill to join his father, and Harry is left to follow the group chattering on eagerly about Viktor Krum's broomstick with his mind as far away from Quidditch as possible.

O O O O O

When Cedric Diggory becomes champion for Hogwarts, the entirely Hufflepuff table practically uproots the benches as they spring up from their seats and holler out their cheers. The second he stands, Cedric is pushed toward Dumbledore by at least five pairs of eager hands clapping him on the shoulders and shouting encouragements in his direction.

When Harry Potter becomes the second champion, and the buzzes of disapproval start in stark contrast to the screams of support, he disappears into the back room on wobbly feet and watches as the champions stare at him like a little boy sending a message.

He wonders if Cedric's father will be disappointed. If the Hufflepuffs will dump monstrous amounts of salt in his cereal. If his friends will believe his adamant declarations of innocence in terms of submitting himself for the tournament. If Cedric will believe that The Boy Who Lived is in desperate need for the spotlight of fame no matter how much he's stealing it from others.

When the truth leaks out and the three champions learn of Harry's addition to the competition, the looks they send him change. Cedric glances at him as if he's calculating whether or not Harry is a boy worth trusting, and Harry tries to smile. His face deflates a little instead.

_If you can't get with them,_ Harry thinks dryly, _Beat them._

O O O O O_  
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The Hufflepuffs, a group of students who Harry had previously associated with cheerful shades of yellow and a generally jovial disposition, are actually quite caustic when put to the test.

He screeches to a halt at the bench where he spies Cedric lounging in the lap of his fellow seventh years when a multitude of badges are wiggled in Harry's face and a few well-rehearsed insults in defense of Cedric's honesty in the tournament are jeered in his direction. Cedric snaps up on the bench like a boy waking up from a nightmare and Harry's jaw sets. He doesn't see the thousand-watt smile from the Quidditch Cup; he sees a fairly stony expression clearly reserved for those not to be trusted.

"Can I have a word?" Harry grits out, and despite the apparent lack of humor in his statement, the Hufflepuffs snort into their robes and giggle at his words nonetheless. The badges whirl and start up again on their goal to offend.

"All right," Cedric says, getting up, but the calls from his friends varying on the lines of _you stink, Potter!_ and _Come on, Ced, he's not worth it!_don't go unheard. Harry stomps on the ground like a child being ignored by his parents during a particularly skilled headstand in the backyard and pulls Cedric behind a bush. It's not until he looks up at the boy's face, nearly a head taller than himself, that he realizes that he doesn't know exactly how to approach the subject.

"Dragons," Harry blurts out with the tact of an impatient child, and Cedric blinks. "That's the first task." He adds helpfully.

"Leave him, Ced!" Another Hufflepuff shouts over the shrubbery. Harry can hear the whirl of the badges even from the distance he's keeping from the other Hufflepuffs, and offhandedly notices that Cedric's robe are clean of any offending garments intent on bashing Harry's honor.

"Are you serious? And Fleur and Krum, do they know?"

Harry nods. He feels vaguely like a businessman desperately attempting to present ideas for a new product in a meeting, jaw set and voice stern. This is not the same boy from the Quidditch Cup. This is not the boy who Harry could fall down onto the grass with and discuss the secret tips of being a successful Seeker while eating Chocolate Frogs. He's waiting for Cedric's friends to start hurling pebbles over the greenery and start shoving badges down the front of his pants for sheer embarrassment purposes.

"Yes." Harry says, and with that curt word, makes a move to head back to the castle, but Cedric's grip on his arm halts him.

"Hey, listen," Cedric murmurs, ducking in to lessen the propinquity separating the two boys. Harry looks straight at his eyes. Gray. "About the badges. I've asked them not to wear them."

He searches Harry's face for some sort of recognition of his sincerity, perhaps a nod or a smile or a signal of his gratefulness that Cedric isn't secretly plotting against Harry and in that sense, possibly believes his candor when it comes to who submitted his name into the goblet. For a moment, Harry feels as if the trust he's made with this stranger is stronger than the one he's secured with Ron who avoids him after four years of close-knit teamwork and friendship, and for a moment, Harry gets the overwhelming urge to hug the boy and release the emotions that have been eating at him from the inside since the announcing of the names.

Harry realizes that perhaps seeking solace in a stranger whose favorite color he doesn't even have the faintest clue of by throwing himself into an impromptu embrace with him is something that would possibly not be considered typical for two teenage boys that are also pitted against each other in a competition for eternal glory, so instead, Harry steps back and says:

"Don't worry about it."

O O O O O

When the First Task looms ever closer until Harry is tapping his toes against the floor of the tent he's impatiently awaiting his cantankerous Hungarian Horntail for and Cedric risks a look at him, he figures he should say something.

His mind supplies the supportive _hope you're prepared for those fire-breathing dragons_ and the not so helpful _just don't die_.

But when Harry examines a bit more carefully, he sees that Cedric's sweating beads of moisture by the line of his hair and his eyes are staring at his shoes in a blatant effort for concentration, he figures that his words would be petty in a situation as intense as fighting off a dragon for an egg that would most presumably only provide hints for another deathly task that could result in severe injury and settles for a small nod that Cedric ends up returning.

When all of it is over and Harry is stumbling back into the tent with tattered and torn robes tainted only slightly with the familiar rubicund taint of blood, he sees Cedric lying in a makeshift hospital bed in the tent while Madam Pomfrey fusses over his minor burns with murmurs of disapproval of the competition's medical consequences. The boy smiles at him, and Harry smiles back, and at that, Harry feels all right.

O O O O O

It's at the Yule Ball when Harry first sees Cedric Diggory in a suit.

He zeros in on the sight like a hawk finding pray, and it takes Harry a second to realize that his gaze probably should have been fixated eleven inches right of Cedric where Cho is sidled up against him. She looks stunning in the light, hair shining as if she jumped straight out of a shampoo commercial a few mere seconds ago. Sam overhears a charming little laugh escape her mouth that's contagious enough to have Cedric replicate it.

They're a charming couple, if not polar opposites in both appearance and what Harry can only assume is personality as well. She's got a lovely face and a creamy complexion clear of every flaw that could possibly blemish it and looks impossibly small and feminine next to Cedric's broad stature. Harry can only imagine what she feels like, but he envisions a soft stomach and long, slender legs smooth like porcelain. Cedric is large, the epitome of the manly seventeen year old, perfectly unruly hair and dapper in a bowtie. His hand practically envelops Cho's tiny fingers in his hold, the strong grip of a Quidditch player evident in his manner of his grasp.

Cedric's arm is wormed securely around her tiny waist, looking quite comfortable, and Harry feels sick to his stomach.

"Potter!"

"Cedric."

Cedric looks nervous. He sneaks glances left and right as if he's about to snatch Harry's Christmas money out of his robes and make a mad dash for escape, and the uneasiness is contagious, slowly spreading to Harry as well and making his feet shuffle. There's a rosy tinge on Cedric's cheekbones, whether from the crisp winter chill or an instance of blushing, Harry can't tell.

"How––how are you?"

Harry is barely ever delivered the chance to hear Hogwarts gossip over the chatter students exchange pertaining solely on his own scandalous deeds and recently, Rita Skeeter induced rumors, but if how virtually the entire Hufflepuff table had ushered Cedric with shouts of encouragement into the Great Hall to drop his name off for the tournament is any indication, he knows that Cedric Diggory is a fairly likeable and popular boy, descriptions that don't normally result in stutters during conversation. Harry is a bit unnerved.

"Spectacular."

"Look, I realized I never thanked you for tipping me off about those dragons." Cedric says, and takes a step forward. Harry stares at the knitting pattern on the yellow scarf hanging around Cedric's neck. It is, in fact, quite yellow.

"Forget about it. I'm sure you would've done the same for me." Harry dismisses, and with a brief glance at where Hermione is watching the entire conversation with hawk eyes that could measure up to McGonagall's watchful glances over by the bridge, starts making his way steadfastly back to the castle.

"Exactly!" Cedric calls out, a little desperately, and Harry turns once more, "D'you know the Prefect's Bathroom on the fifth floor?"

Harry watches as Cedric takes another step closer. He's never seen or heard of the Prefect's Bathroom, partly out of his own apathy to either become or affiliate specifically with Prefects, and partly out of his complete lack of desire to go snooping around in bathrooms. Nonetheless, he nods.

This is the part when Cedric leans in, and Harry Potter sees puberty flashing before his eyes.

He's fourteen and knows what all his bits can do by this point in his teenage life, and he supposes that given the opportunity, he might know where to put them, but that doesn't change the fact that he's never experienced anything remotely romantic in his life that didn't include unattractive ogling or humiliating rejections. When it comes to simpler things just involving two mouths and the almost unbelievable coincidence that they happen to be in the same place at the same time, Harry writes these coincidences in which two humans are both sharing precisely the same thought and manage to lean in at exactly the same speed and distances mere miracles that his so far hardly fortunate life would not deposit in his lap.

He can smell the vague wafts of scent of Cedric's shampoo as his face moves closer, and Harry starts realizing that perhaps he now understands the edgy looks Cedric had been throwing in all directions before advancing on the younger boy and swooping in for a snog.

This leads to the conclusion where Harry must determine if that is, in fact, what Cedric is rapidly descending on him for.

Cedric Diggory is unbelievably gorgeous and from what he has witnessed, can do no wrong. He walks gracefully down from portkey vortexes and almost always walks around with a clan of supportive friends who are evoking laughs out of the boy. He has a girlfriend, a great figure, and has managed to survive Potions class all the way until seventh year, something Harry is very much doubting he will be able to achieve. He is, in every sense of the word, flawless, and Harry doesn't fail to notice it.

So despite his mild fear of kisses, lack of knowledge as to where the noses are supposed to go, and the slightly unsettling thought that he will, whether he wants to or not, be tasting what Cedric just ate for lunch, he puckers his lips and waits.

"It's not a bad place for a bath."

Harry's eyes swiftly fly open to be met not with the incoming sight of Cedric's parted mouth, but rather the sensation of a warm gust of Cedric's breath over his ear as he steers straight past his lips to the side of his face.

And then, in a second's passing, the moment is over and Cedric is back to a more appropriate proximity with a small smile on his face.

Harry is, admittedly, disappointed.

O O O O O

As it turns out, the Prefect's Bathroom on the fifth floor is not a bad place for a bath.

It's an even better place for one when Cedric Diggory joins him.

O O O O O

The bubbles are almost gone and Harry's feet have pruned like grapes in the sun by the time that the suggestion of drying off finally makes it into the air.

From the look on Cedric's face, he thinks it's a silly suggestion too.

Underneath the water and barely visible through the soapy suds still swimming around their chests, Harry sees the vague, blurry outline of his pinky finger touching Cedric's. Cedric has large hands. Cedric has large other things, too.

"You do know that you didn't even bring your egg, right?" Cedric points out. Harry feels a little stupid, partly because Cedric's right, partly because he's donning nothing but shiny bubbles, and partly because he's still got half an arousal pressing up against his thigh. He shifts in the water and the bubbles sway with him.

"Oh. Um. Yeah." Harry says, most eloquently, and prods at a bubble.

He's fourteen. Fourteen, naked, and has not an inkling of an idea how to behave when he's jerked off with his competition a few minutes ago. He's not quite so worried about the kissing anymore.

Another second passes by before there's a firm grip of two palms holding onto his hips and lifting him effortlessly onto a very wet, very naked lap, and all thoughts of eggs and Triwizard Champion eternal glory is washed swiftly away. Cedric's hands slide over the small of Harry's back before a single finger traces the line of his ass before he flips them over and pushes Harry against the rim of the bathtub. There are bubbles everywhere. Bubbles squish between their chests and slide down a few wet strands of Cedric's hair.

"You are… sort of adorable." Cedric says through a smile that tugs on the ends of his lips, and Harry has no idea what to say yet again. The good news is, Cedric doesn't leave the option for speech open, his teeth tugging on Harry's bottom lip and hands winding around his torso like he's prepared to fuse himself onto Harry's body with no regrets. Harry's legs wind their way around Cedric's waist, and that's when Cedric makes that sound that Harry could record and listen to hourly if it didn't make the estrogen count in his body skyrocket and Ron tease him endlessly, the soft _mmm_as if Cedric's just tasted hot apple pie or been pulled from the slumber of a particularly pleasant dream. His lips descend down Harry's neck and Harry tightens the grip of his legs around Cedric's body.

In the corner of a vacant bathroom stall, Myrtle giggles.

O O O O O

Any instantaneous bliss that Harry had the pleasure to experience when he resurfaced from the lake and heard his lungs scream for the relief of air was swiftly diminished into a pit of consternation in his stomach when he fell upon the sight of Cho being nursed back to body temperature warmth by a towel Cedric was firmly wrapping around her sopping body.

Fleur rushes forward and almost tips off the dock into the water as she shrieks for the sister that's no longer lying limp in Harry's grip but is rather sputtering for air and Ron starts coughing up bits and pieces of the lake as he struggles to stay afloat. Harry watches as he's pulled up onto the dock by various hands and instantly wrapped in a towel twice his size.

He watches as Cho dries off her face and nods along to what Harry can only presume is the myriad of questions Cedric's asking out of sincere concern. He feels ridiculous.

As if it wasn't bad enough to be The Boy Who Lived, being a queer hopelessly smitten with his competition and refusing to verbally accept any of these truths concerning himself also adds a generous amount of drama to his already histrionic teenage life.

Harry would gladly go without any of it.

O O O O O

Everyone's cheering.

There's drums, trumpets, and the shouts of hundreds of anxious students throwing their arms into the air at the sight of Harry Potter with one arm around the battered Triwizard Cup that didn't look nearly so glorious anymore now that it was wrapped in Harry's bloody fingers, and one arm locked around Cedric Diggory's waist.

When the first scream from Fleur Delacour breaks the atmosphere of success and satisfaction among the crowd of cheering Hogwarts students, the music stops. Harry doesn't hear anything over the sound of the palpitations of his heart beating against his ribcage.

A hand, faceless to Harry, reaches out to pull him away, but Harry resists. He screams, latches onto Cedric like a child who doesn't know obedience, pressing his cheek again Cedric's chest. It's cold. Cedric's cold all over, even when he reaches up to touch his face. He expects a jolt of his body, the familiar smile of genuine joy fit for the Hufflepuff banner itself, the film of gray to slip under Cedric's eyelids and pull the death out of his body. None of it happens. He's cold, but his cheeks aren't tinged red and his scarf isn't around his neck. He's pallid like a ghost's hue and cold like snow, but Harry doesn't let go.

The hand clutching his shoulder tries again, pulling Harry off the ground as if he'll get sucked into it himself if he doesn't let go. Harry protests again, his voice breaking at the end as his lungs shriek to their highest pitch of refusal.

He's The Boy Who Lived, and this isn't the first time he's questioned why he wasn't The Boy Who Died like intended, but it is the first time that he's wished it was so. He's always missed the question marks that are his parents, clutched to the photographs of their memories, listened like a dog about to be fed to the stories of their childhood, but never once did it feel like this. Never once did it feel like he was to blame, like something he always considered safe and secure was torn violently from his grip, like the unexpected had pierced right through him and only managed to make Cedric bleed.

"No! No! No, don't!" Harry roars, and dives onto Cedric as if his own warmth can heat up Cedric's blood and restart his system. Like it isn't permanent, like this death isn't reality.

He thinks of the Prefect's Bathroom, the taps of soap, the ghastly burn result of the dragon and later on, the slimy ointment that Madam Pomfrey had generously slathered on to treat it, the yellow scarf, the dress robes at the Yule Ball that Cho was allowed to touch, the sound of his cheers at the Quidditch cup, the way Amos Diggory doted on his son.

"_That's my son_!"

The tears are salty; the tears are everywhere. Falling into his mouth, slipping from his eyes like a leaky faucet in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, getting caught in his throat in lumps. He sobs for the pain in his side, the sight of Voldemort's merciless eyes, and the cold, stony body he's blanketing with his own. Harry grips Cedric's arm hard enough to bruise, his other fingers finding his cheek and staying there as if they've found their dying place. His thumb strokes over dirt and blood, the same scent he can smell coming off of Cedric's shirt.

"_That's my boy!_"

He hears the stomps of dozens of feet approaching and the screams of the crowd turn into cries. Cedric isn't crying. Harry wishes he was. He would wipe away the tear tracks and heave the boy up and shout back to the crowd like a winner still on his feet until Cedric would be joining him in the whirl of triumph and scream too. He wouldn't be pitched over his body and bawling under his cries were silent, throat was scratchy, and eyelids were swollen.

He has Hermione, and Ron, and Sirius, and all the Weasleys, and all the Gryffindors he's sat with for four years. But this boy, The Boy Who Didn't Live, the boy who gave Harry magic without a single wave of his wand, the boy who undoubtedly deserved to live so Harry could love him, Harry doesn't have him.

Of everything Harry expected out of Cedric Diggory, he never would have expected this.

_A/N:_ Clearly, this is based off of the movie. To be honest, I think this movie really did justice to the book, and on top of that, they added in a fair amount of suggestive Harry/Cedric material that made writing this quite easy.

So I watched the movie again and admittedly, cried when Cedric died. I would, however, have cried harder if I didn't know that he would soon be reincarnated as Edward Cullen.

(Really now. Even in context, what part of "it's not a bad place for a bath," doesn't scream rendezvous with Harry Potter in a bathtub?)


End file.
